ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOT EVEN VIETNAM duty prepared volunteer firefighter Charlie Robertson for the tragedy of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Charlie Robertson thought a tour of duty in Vietnam and nearly 20 years as a volunteer firefighter had hardened him to the worst of disasters.
Last year's April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City proved him wrong.
``I went out there hard-core,'' the Garrisonville man told The Free Lance-Star newspaper. ``I would not expect to be one who would break down in tears or something like that. This punched a hole in all that.''
Robertson took a brief leave from his landscaping business last year and joined seven other Northern Virginia firefighters on a trip to Oklahoma City a few days after the bombing.
The group distributed $35,000 to the families of eight children who were seriously injured in the blast.
The eight families were just some of the people whose lives were ripped apart when a bomb blew away half of the federal building, killing 168 people, including 19 children.
The tragedy hit home for Robertson when he saw a pile of destroyed toys outside the federal building.
``You had parents that were there in the hospital with the kids 24 hours a day,'' he said. He recalled the 15-year-old girl with chest injuries who watched her baby die right next to her; the 20-month-old boy with two broken arms and dust-filled lungs and the 5-year-old boy who was almost comatose and hooked up to a respirator.
He was ``bandaged up like a mummy,'' Robertson said.
Reliving some of the memories is hard for Robertson.
His voice wavered as he recalled the woman who approached him as he was sitting in the Oklahoma City airport waiting for his flight home.
Noticing his white shirt with the firefighter's badge, she asked if he had been helping the victims. When he said yes, she asked if she could give him a hug. ``I just want to thank you,'' the woman said, adding that her daughter died in the blast.
Robertson didn't know what to say. He just stood there, wiping at the tears streaming down his cheeks.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Robertsonby CNB